The Wisdom of Drunk Cats
by K. Elisabeth
Summary: Booth and Brennan spend Valentine's Day together... though certainly not how you might think. I hate this holiday, so I had to amuse myself somehow. BB, good times.


**A/N:** I hate this holiday. Really, I do. I know I sound bitter, and maybe I am - but that doesn't matter. I have channeled my dislike of the holiday into what I hope will be a humorous little gift to all of you. Enjoy! :)

* * *

"Now, he's going to be a little loopy for the next day or two," the oral surgeon explained to Brennan, who surveyed Booth with a look of peculiarity. He stared back from the dental chair where he lay, drumming his fingers on his stomach, mouth packed with gauze.

"And after that?" Brennan asked.

"He'll be fine, maybe a little sore but some Tylenol aught to take care of it," the surgeon said, patting Booth's foot affectionately with her small hand. "We don't see many men your age who need their wisdom teeth removed!" Booth tried to say something in reply, but the gauze garbled whatever words he was trying to form. Brennan shook her head and smiled, wondering how it was he convinced her to be the "designated driver" after his Valentine's Day surgery. Oh, right. _The look_.

"Bonths," Booth said, suddenly waking up in the passenger's seat as they sat at a red light.

"Hmm?" she asked, looking over at him.

"Ahwannamilthath," he tried to say.

"Excuse me?" she asked, not understanding him. She looked at the clock on the car's dash. "Here, it's been half an hour, you can take the gauze out." She handed him a small plastic bag from the surgeon's office, which he deposited the gauze into.

"Ah wan uh milthake," he repeated, more clearly than before but still in a garbled way thanks to the slow-wearing anesthetic.

"A what?" Brennan asked.

"A milkthake," Booth tried pitifully to articulate. "Milk. Thake. Milkthake."

"A milkshake?"

"Yeth!" he said, nodding as he leaned back into his seat and shut his eyes. "A milkthake."

"I think I can handle that," Brennan said, finding a well-placed McDonald's and pulling into the drive-through. Booth hummed to himself as they sat in line, then suddenly grabbed Brennan's arm, causing her to jump.

"Iths Valenthines Day!" he said, as if it had just occurred to him. She nodded.

"Yes, it is," she agreed.

"Happy Valenthine's Day, Bonths," Booth said with a stupid grin. She shook her head.

"It's a ludicrous holiday," she said. "Completely arbitrary, not based on any historically significant event. It exists merely as a commercial entity, to boost late winter sales figures."

"You're just thaying that 'cauths you're thingle," Booth said, staring out the window at the rain that had started to fall as if he had never seen rain before. Brennan gave him a scandalized look.

"For your information," she said stiffly, "I had a date for tonight. I cancelled when you asked me to pick you up after your surgery."

"You're theeing thomeone?" Booth asked, looking hurt. "You didn't tell me!"

"I was," Brennan said, wishing the line would move forward a little faster. Apparently the person in front of them had ordered enough food to feed the U.S. Coast Guard. "It's not going to work out, though."

"Oh," Booth said, using his finger to trace raindrops as they ran down the window. "That thucks."

"Yeah," Brennan said as they finally rolled up to the speaker. "What kind of milkshake do you want?"

oOoOoOoOo

Several hours later, Brennan sat on Booth's couch, flipping through TV channels. This was precisely why she did not have a TV—one could spend hours, even days in front of the thing, doing nothing but watching time pass by. Especially if, like Booth, they subscribed to satellite and picked up literally every English-speaking television station, and most Spanish ones. Brennan even flipped through a few she thought might be in Arabic.

_Reality TV show. Next._

_Dr. Phil. Next._

_Dirty Jobs. This might work. _Brennan let the remote rest on the couch next to her, leaning into its surplus cushions and tucking her feet beneath the throw she had pulled off the back. She watched as the show's host waded knee-deep in some unidentified sludge, unable to hear what it was for having muted the television. Booth slept in the room behind her, and she did not want the noise from the TV to bother him.

"Hey," a voice said suddenly, causing her to jump. She looked up and saw Booth standing at the end of the couch, watching her with bleary eyes. Judging by the way he looked, he very well could've been sleep walking.

"You're up," she observed. He sank down onto the couch next to her, rubbing his eyes.

"Yeah," he said, his earlier slurred speech gone, replaced by slow but fully articulated words. "Why are you on my couch?"

"Am I not allowed to sit on the couch?" Brennan asked. Booth smiled, wrapping his arms around himself.

"You can sit wherever you want," he said sweetly, trying to smile but unable to do much with his swelling cheeks. "I just thought you'd be gone by now."

"Well, I know how sensitive you are to medication…"

"I'm not a girl," Booth objected.

"No," she said slowly, trying to understand his heavily drugged logic. "You're not. But you react very strongly to medications, and even the most resistant person would be affected by the dose of Oxycodone they put you on." Booth nodded his fervent agreement.

"I feel like a drunk cat," he said after a moment of contemplation. Brennan laughed.

"A what?" she asked. He pressed his face into the couch cushion, groaning.

"I dunno," he said. "It's dark. Is it night outside?"

"Yes, it is," she said. "It's night inside, too." Booth turned his face towards her and squinted, as if she was far away, or he was just trying to get a very good look at her.

"You're sassy," he finally decided.

"I am not sassy," Brennan objected.

"Yes you are," Booth insisted, slowly moving his outstretched index finger towards her and finally poking her in the shoulder with it. "You're a big… sass bucket."

"A sass bucket?"

"Yes."

"That is ridiculous."

"Says the sass bucket," Booth muttered, dissolving into strained laughter. Brennan turned the volume back up on the TV, effectively drowning him out. Mike Rowe wrestled with a mud-slicked pig, which appeared to be winning.

"I love this show!" Booth nearly shouted.

"It does have its merits," Brennan agreed.

"You could be on this show," Booth said. "Your job is disgusting."

"My job isn't supposed to be disgusting," Brennan said. "My job is to look at bones. It didn't get disgusting until you showed up."

"Are you saying I'm disgusting?" Booth asked, sounding offended.

"No," she said. "But you did get me caught up in investigating murders, which is in its nature a grisly job. Bones themselves are not disgusting until you add decomposing flesh."

"So I'm the gross-bringer," Booth said, still miffed. "I bring grossness wherever I go. Thanks, Bones. Thanks a lot. Happy Valentine's Day to me."

"Oh God, not this again," she said, rubbing her temples with her thumb and middle finger.

"You should be on a date right now," Booth said, looking up at the clock. "_Right now_. But you're not. And me either. I'm a drunk cat and you're a sass bucket and nobody wants to date a drunk cat do they?" Before Brennan could answer the asinine question, Booth started up again.

"You," he said, poking her shoulder once more. "You should be at dinner… candles and roses and… and that little sexy black dress…" Booth didn't seem to notice his word choice, and Brennan decided to ignore it for the time being. "But you're not. You're drunk-cat-sitting. Why?"

"I told you," Brennan said. "You're sensitive to medication, I didn't feel comfortable leaving you alone."

"So who is he?" Booth asked, seeming to ignore her answer or to not remember having asked the question at all.

"Someone I met," she said vaguely. "He works in artifact dating."

"Dating," Booth said, chuckling stupidly. "Artifact dating. Dating bones. Dating _Bones_. It's funny!"

"Okay," Brennan said, laughing even despite herself. She got up from the couch and disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a pudding cup, two large white pills and a glass of water. She gave them to Booth, who swallowed them with ease before pulling the top off of the pudding and licking it clean.

"So what happened to that?" Booth asked after polishing off the pudding. Brennan looked away from the TV, where the myth of driving with your windows down versus running the air conditioner was being busted.

"To what?" she asked.

"Mr. Artifact Dating," Booth said. "You said it wouldn't work out." Brennan chewed on the inside of her mouth.

"Well," she finally said. "Mostly work interfered."

"You work in the same building," Booth pointed out skeptically. She smiled.

"No," she said. "I mean working with you, out in the field."

"Oh," he said. "So really it was me, then, huh?"

"You could say that," Brennan said. "He disliked the amount of time we spent together."

"What a jerk," Booth said, eyes sliding in and out of focus as he stared at the TV. Brennan could tell the new dose was starting to kick in. "I'm sorry."

"Thanks," Brennan said, leaning back into the couch and smoothing the throw over her lap.

"No I'm not," Booth said out of the blue ten minutes later, after Myth Busters had faded into a special about the human body. Brennan, who had been on the verge of napping, sat up slightly and looked over at him.

"What?"

"I'm not," he repeated slowly, slouched back with his eyes shut.

"Not what?" she asked.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm not sorry. That it didn't work out. I'm not, not really."

"Oh," she said, a puzzled wrinkle sprouting up on her forehead but smiling nonetheless. Booth smiled and shook his head, and she was quite sure he was over the rainbow at this point.

"Nope," he said happily. "Not sorry… not at all." Then he went quiet, his breaths becoming long and easy, his features relaxed. He was asleep again. Brennan scooted over and settled her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes and feeling him gently rise and fall in tandem with her own breaths.

"Neither am I."

* * *

**A/N:** Awwww. You had to know that was coming. :) Oh, and as for a fun fact... "sass bucket" is what my journalism advisor used to call me when I was a Yearbook staff editor in high school. I won't tell you where "drunk cat" came from. Show me some holiday love and let me know what you think!


End file.
